


Bye Bye, Blackbird

by LadyElebreth



Category: Cacw - Fandom, Captain America, captain america: civil war - Fandom
Genre: Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: Civil War (spoilers), F/M, Let Bucky eat his fruit in peace good grief people, Marvel AU fic, Pepperony - Freeform, Pietro Maximoff is alive, Tony needs to buy a few books on parenting, scarletvision - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-07-18 00:12:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7291774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyElebreth/pseuds/LadyElebreth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We are not enemies. We must not be enemies, but friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. LAGOS, PART ONE

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I've started a Civil War fic and put Rory in it.  
> And Pietro.  
> I own nothing, this is the Russo Brother's playground and I'm just peacefully swinging in it, 100% positive that the feels are going to kill me before I'm done.
> 
> Update: HEY I'VE EDITED THE WHOLE CHAPTER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -Aurora Carter-

" _All right, what do you see?"_ Steve's voice, first of all.

I see it as well as I hear it. And after that...I see everything. But mainly, people. Streets, sidewalks, buses, cars, and buildings full of people.

People who have absolutely no reason to be happy, but they smile anyway and sell their wares in the bazaar. Women who have never seen me before, but wave to me as if I'm a friend.  
Children who live in poverty and still play without a care in the world, as if they know where their next meal is coming from.

Exhaling, I switched my full bag from one shoulder to the other. I smiled at another vendor and passed where, across the way, the police station was located. About six cops stood around talking, joking with each other. Two of them had sidearms. One elbowed his partner and gestured over at me.

 _"Standard beat cops,"_ was whispered very quietly into my ear as I waved and flashed a faked smile. _"Only two of them are carrying."_ From a little further up, I could see the back of a baseball cap and the long brunette waves hanging out from underneath it. Wanda sat calmly in an outside corner cafè with a cup between her hands. " _Small station on a quiet street. It's a good target."_

The target in question, though, was not said station. It was Brock Rumlow. After the stint in D.C., we didn't know what had become of him. Intelligence claimed he had spent weeks in a heavily-surveillanced ICU, but had escaped before full reconstruction had taken place. What that last part meant, we could only guess. By now, he had a rep not only for raiding government weapon caches, but for attacking law enforcement offices around the world; the only reason why was to get our attention. Dozens so far in Europe alone had been hit, some in America, and Nigeria today. But not if we had anything to say about it.

Steve came back over my feed: _"There's an ATM in the south corner, which means?"_

" _There are cameras,"_ a new voice, Pietro's, murmured suddenly. We'd stationed him outside of another building, where he wouldn't be in a position to lift anything from the street market.  
He looked like a normal, loitering teenager who was struggling to grow a three-day beard.

" _Means our guy doesn't care about being seen,"_ Steve broke in again. _"He isn't afraid to make a mess on the way out."_

I have to say, I felt a little guilty about strolling around, buying jewelry and whatnot while Steve was obviously trying to get me to be serious with the twins. But it's not as if I ever actually get to go shopping; even if it was just a cover.  
"And the street is one-way," I said under my breath, right before a louder greeting in Yorúbà that I'd spent the better part of that morning trying to perfect. The vendor handed me a very impressive pair of earrings to examine.

I sensed Wanda was moving; probably looking over her shoulder. " _Escape routes compromised?"_

In less than five seconds, I'd been convinced that the earrings perfectly matched my eyes. I paid for them and started for another booth. "Exactly."

Pietro scoffed. " _Wonderful_."

As nonchalantly as I could, I started to make my way out of the market. Under the guise of brushing my hair away from my eyes, I adjusted the volume on my earpiece. "Hey, guys? There's a Range Rover parked halfway up the block. You see it?"

At this point, I couldn't see Wanda, but I knew she hadn't even looked. " _You mean the red one? Yeah, it's cute."_

In spite of the situation at hand, I smiled. "It's bulletproof, too." 

" _Which means private security, that means more guns, which means more headaches for someone else; probably us."_

 _Thanks for finally joining the party, Natasha,_ I thought.

Steve was watching it now. _"Check it out, Pietro. Carefully_."

I could hear Pietro sigh very heavily; the poor kid wanted to cut loose so badly, he was acting like he had an itch he couldn't reach. But presently, I saw the blur of his blue hoodie as he approached and then left the Ranger at the curb.

" _It's empty, but registration says it's not from this state,"_ he announced suddenly. 

It was my turn to huff. Fabulous. Probably a foreign dignitary.  
"Well, that's great," I muttered.

" _Day's not over yet, Roe,"_ Steve replied, cool and calm as always. " _Get as close as you can to the station. Stand by until I send Pietro to pick you up."_

Shrugging, I sighed and set down my basket on the back of a fruit truck, right into the lap of a little girl. I knew there was no chance of finding it again, but at least I had given everyone who'd sold me something five times their asking prices. With both hands free, I lifted one to my forehead and waved the other out in front of me. Softly, I whispered a suggestion to over seven hundred individuals and continued on my way—completely unseen by the crowd.

" _This isn't gonna be easy,"_ I heard Sam say. " _There are way too many people around, Cap."_

" _You guys know I can move things with my mind, right? We can handle this."_

" _'Salem Hunt Rejects Strike Again_ '," Pietro countered, " _tonight at 11."_

My smile faded. Seriously?

" _Keep it down, kids,"_ Natasha scolded casually.

Pietro rolled his eyes and kept moving. " _Whatever, Baba._ "

" _Looking over your shoulder should be second nature,"_ she replied as if he hadn't said anything. " _To do that, you have to pace yourself. And pacing yourself only helps when you actually do it."_

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sam making his way over the rooftops. " _Did anybody ever tell you that you're a little bit paranoid, Romanoff?"_

Yes Sam, I have. Once. And I never did it again.

" _Not to my face,"_ she said. Obviously she had chosen not to remember that occasion, either. " _Why, did you hear something?"_

At that moment, Steve spoke up again. " _Eyes on target, folks. It's the best lead we've had on Rumlow in six months and I don't want to lose him."_

" _Once he sees us comin', that shouldn't be a problem_ ," Sam told him, " _After all, he kinda hates us."_

A very overloaded garbage truck passed me by on the street and I wrinkled my nose in spite of myself. But then I saw where it was headed, and it wasn't on its way to the city limits. "Guys?"

" _I see it,_ " Steve acknowledged. " _Garbage truck. Take it, Sam."_

I watched Redwing fly out from the roof of a nearby building.  
It passed me and continued up the street unnoticed, right until it was hovering underneath the bed of the truck. I heard Sam ask his probe for an X-ray before we got the verdict.

" _Cap, the truck's loaded for max weight,"_ Sam's voice was urgent. _"And the driver's armed."_

Uh-oh.

" _It's a battering ram,_ " Natasha realized. _"What's it doing that far from the station?"_

" _Go, now_ ," Steve ordered, sudden urgency in his voice. " _Ro, uncloak; Maximoff, go get Wanda."_

" _Why?_ " Wanda inquired, bewhildered, as soon as I obediently dissolved the perception filter I had created.  


_"He's not after the police!"_ Steve answered ominously. A split second later, I heard a rush as she was literally swept off her feet; then a very loud crash that I could only assume was the garbage truck. Pietro then came to me, empty-handed. "Hey, Ro."

"Easy, sugar rush," I warned as he effortlessly scooped me up in the same manner.

As he always did, Pietro smirked and took off anyway. By the time we got to the truck's destination, the shooting had already started.

The new target loomed above all the other buildings—the Lagos Research Institute for Infectious Diseases. When you consider all things one can catch or accidentally end up with, keeping a place like that running and funded is a very big deal indeed, especially in this country.  
Who knew what it would be like when Brock was done with it?

I felt physically sick, but it had nothing to do with the speed. I had decided not to mention that there were also about three unmarked Pensk trucks following that garbage carrier; I'd assumed Steve had seen them. I mean, it was impossible not to; they were huge, filthy, yellow, and suspicious. Unfortunately, I found out a lot sooner than I wanted to exactly what was inside of them, which was lots of very mean-looking gentlemen.  
With very heavy-looking guns. And none of them were happy to see us.

Pietro was still streaking towards the security gate of the institute when I realized that we were being shot at. Call it a premonition, but something told me that I really wasn't going to feel like digging bullets out of Wanda's brother later. Or having them dug out of myself, for that matter.

"Sling-shot!" I yelled. Just like that, Pietro turned on the ball of his foot at full speed. Everything slowed to a crawl, including the movements of the gunmen. Swiftly, expertly, Pietro let go of me so that I landed several feet ahead of him, while he skidded to an instant stop.

As soon as I hit the ground, I raised my arms and extended both hands. Whispering, opaque black tendrils materialized and caught every airborne bullet before they could hit us.

I threw my hands out in sequence as I passed through, black matter splashing across the distance between Rumlow's men and me. Pietro ran further ahead to the mangled gates and knocked several more down.

The bullets were still coming just as hard as before and I was doing all I could to keep them back. As Pietro stayed at normal pace and I ran alongside him, I bent my left arm at the elbow and instantly, a dark mass manifested to protect us from gunfire. In my right fist was where I began to gradually divert excess energy.

" _Pietro, Rory,"_ we picked up on Steve's voice, " _get in here. They've got tear gas. Bring Wanda with you."_

Pietro gave me a pained look, which I ignored. "Got it. Standby," I told him before turning back to Pietro. "Wanda's at the south entrance, go get her. And do it in the next five seconds; I'm going over the wall."

His eyes widened. "You're going to—"

"Yup. So get yourself out of here." My right hand was starting to convulse at this point, and that was a touch discomforting.

Pietro turned away. "You sure about this?" he asked over his shoulder right as he hightailed it out of there.

"Nope!" I vaulted over the debris from the gate...and right into the path of another mercenary. It took me about a quarter of a second to disarm him and then decide that he wasn't worth my time. But what I did do was use him for leverage by pushing off of his body armor with both feet. About the same time that I threw down the black pulse in my right hand.

The result was immediate: rising up into the air, I left the excess energy behind and watched the black pulse writhe through the ground and up into several foot soldiers, who screamed as their legs were sucked down into the ground. Balanced out with both arms, I whispered and let the energy I still held carry over the wall. "Don't look down, don't look down, don't look down," I muttered the mantra through clenched teeth and tried to focus on finding the others.

Steve was already in there way ahead of all of us; he was crouched on top of one of the facility's armored trucks, pressing a finger to his earpiece. He clutched the strap of his shield with the other.

"Body armor," he was saying. I saw two more gunmen coming up alongside the truck.  
Steve had his back to them. "AR15s. I make—" he caught sight of me right as I reached out and threw the assailants against the inner wall. Dark matter dispelled them into the stone, even as they shouted in surprise. To my surprise, Steve gave me a somewhat disappointed, "too much extra" look. 

I raised my hands in defense and a millisecond later, they rose up out of the ground, wreathed in the same blackness. "Ro and I make eight hostiles," Steve resumed.

"I make five!" Sam suddenly yelled, and I whirled around in time to see him land on the roof. Using his wings, he knocked three of the eight aforementioned hostiles off their feet and took them down. Two of the others ran from around the side of another truck and began shooting at me.

I held up a hand without looking and lifted them into the air before soundly smacking them against the pavement, just hard enough to discombobulate them.

Steve hadn't been kidding about the gas; even though we were all outside, much of it was escaping from the broken windows into the open air. The noxious beige fumes made my throat burn and eyes water, albeit my effort to ignore them.

I sensed a sudden rush and Wanda appeared beside me, hair tousled and eyes wide as we both immediately threw up our hands to keep from getting shot. Glittering red fused with shimmering black and we crouched behind our handmade defense.

Blue veins streaked past us once again from the opposite direction. The soldiers were suddenly knocked off their feet, remaining airborne for a split second before they hit the ground. Pietro stopped mid-run and flexed his shoulders. "Four," he corrected Sam smugly.

To his credit, Sam ignored him and sent Redwing out to scan the building, instead.  
"Rumlow's on the third floor," he called out presently.

Pietro looked up to said level and shrugged. "No problem. We stop at snack machine on the way up."

Wanda rolled her eyes. She didn't have the chance to scold him; Steve had approached us and was gesturing to her. "Wanda," he said quickly, "just like we practiced. Sam, cover them."

She obediently began to gather a hex in her hands. "What about the gas?"

Steve hadn't stopped heading toward the building. My eyes widened as a very bad scenario began to play out in my head. "No, seriously," I called after him, "what about the gas?"

"Get it out," was all he said.

With that, Wanda lifted her hands, and the same red glow surrounding them appeared on Steve's knees and feet as she lifted him into the air and into the path of a window. He lifted his shield up to protect his face.  
In only a second, he had crashed through the glass and out of our line of sight.

Did I mention it was the only window that wasn't broken yet?

I sighed, shaking my head. "You heard the old man," turning to the twins, my gaze shifted to the older of the two. "Pietro?"

Pietro smiled, cracking the knuckles of both hands before he turned and took off.  
I nodded once to Wanda, who nodded once back. We raised our arms to the exterior of the building, hands open, fingers out, and concentrated on siphoning every last draught of poisonous air out of that building. By this time, Pietro was a blue blur around the building, and with Wanda and I drawing the gas out, he created the wind she needed to contain it as I dispelled it safely into the stratosphere.

_Rzzzzz...bzzzzt..._

My comm began to act up and I quickly adjusted the frequency. "Say again?"

Steve's voice held an edge. " _It's not here. Rumlow has a biological weapon!"_


	2. LAGOS, PART 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _POV: Steve Rogers_

_Rumlow had never intended to hit the police._

It was like every time someone had knocked my block off when I was a kid; the same dread that I never let anyone see was there, even though I told myself to ignore it. 

I sprinted back out of the laboratory; its adjoining outside space led to a balcony and to cleaner air than what I'd just left. Scanning the ground, I saw nothing. Pietro and the girls were nowhere in my line of sight, and neither was Sam.

There wasn't time to run back inside and try to find a staircase. _I've got to make my own way down,_ I thought.

No sooner did it cross my mind to call for Rory than I saw someone was on the ground, manning one of the Humvees, both hands at the mounted launcher.

The barrel of it was pointing right up at me.

_Oh, snap._

Instinct screamed and I threw my shield up. It caught the full force of the blast, throwing me back into the building and the opposite wall, which instantly gave.

Grayish clouds of dust swirled around my eyes and I tried to wipe them away. Coughing, I spit out a mouthful of grit, along with a word I won't repeat in mixed company, and hit the ground running. It didn't take any amount of deduction; whoever had just shot at me had been shooting to kill.

It had to be Rumlow.

Thankfully, the balcony that had just been obliterated wasn't my only way out. There was another to the left wing of the building, just ahead of me.

And I might have gotten there in record time if another rocket hadn't punched through the window. Another followed, and another, one that sent more debris flying and left a manhole-sized dent even as I ran past.

Out of nowhere, the building was shaken again, but this time, I didn't miss the rocket. The next thing I heard was the clink of shattering glass. For an instant, everything stopped, and I realized I'd been thrown through the windows. Then, everything sped up again, so that I didn't even have time to control the fall. Obstacles just kept coming, and I kept l banging into all of them; going down, down, down until I finally hit the pavement.

Hard.

But still in one piece.

I tried to assess the damage, and it didn't take long. Landing had knocked the breath out of me, and each time I tried to inhale, it would stick in my windpipe. 

Well, _reasonably_ in one piece.

And my head was still on.

Rumlow hadn't run me over yet, which I took as a good sign until I picked up sounds of the engine, revving past me.

I tried to get up, but couldn't. There was a consistent ringing in my ears, and I could feel the throb reverbating inside my helmet. Mentally, I shook it off, just hoping I hadn't finally taken a harder knock than I could stand.

_C'mon, Rogers. Get up. Call out his trajectory, someone will hear it. Where's he going?_

"Sam," I grunted, slapping both hands down for support. "He's...in the main Humvee, heading north!"


	3. LAGOS, PART 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aurora Carter POV

Even as I made my way back to the square, an awful, permeating dread was writhing its way through my veins. It only intensified with every running step I took, and by the time I received my next update from Steve—that there were four mercenaries loose in the marketplace, and that they had split up—I was was just trying to concentrate on breathing.

I forced myself to think about what was really happening here. All of this went against Brock's previous patterns. It made no sense whatsoever for him to even still be here if the bacteria was all that he wanted; he was drawing us all out. Separating us on purpose. This wasn't going our way, and even if not a one of us would say so, everyone was thinking it. And I of all people should know that.

Sam suddenly broke through on my feed.  _"Rory, there's two at your one o'clock; you see 'em?"_

I didn't, but I was too winded to let him know that. Skidding to a stop, I exhaled, hands on my knees. All in the space of a few seconds, I let the ring in my ears dissipate and allowed myself two deep breaths before looking up again; this time trying to scope out two men in a crowd of hundreds. Fortunately, there were only two men present who were dressed in suspicious black fatigues that day. One took a ratty-looking tote from the other and branched off not far away from me, and I took that as my cue.

Standing upright, I took off.

 _"Rory, they're on the move! Rory, do you copy?"_ Steve's voice this time.

Instinctively, I smiled, even though he couldn't see it. "Way ahead a' you, Steven."

Despite how coolly I had answered him, the odds were not in my favor at the present. There was just too much in my way as it was; by this time, my guy knew I was on his tail, and he was knocking over whatever he could feasibly reach into my path.

Jumping over displays, stacks of baskets, and even scrambling over the occasional parked car wasn't bringing me any closer to him. I had been taking every spare space of footing that I could grab in the crowds just to get this far, but by the looks of how he was getting along, grabbing him from the ground wasn't an option. I scanned for a quick way up and found it—there was a booth up ahead of me, constructed from piping with some kind of plywood for a roof.

Part of the piping stuck out far enough for someone to grab hold of, and that's exactly what I did. Albeit the cries of surprise from the vendor and his neighbors, I used the momentum to swing up onto the top of the next booth; before I knew it, I was clattering over the metal tops of the stands, skipping over the ones covered with tarps. The height gave me a much-needed advantage, because now not only could I see him, but I was gaining on him.

It was then, against my better judgement, that I decided to mess with him a little. As I'd done earlier with different people, I reached out and altered his perceptions just so that he couldn't see me, but I also let a little paranoia slip through so he'd still know I was there. It worked like a charm. In three seconds, he must've turned his head twelve times in my direction. 

With quick and careful footwork, I veered and vaulted off the top of a fruit stand, just in time to land ten yards ahead of him. "Everybody, get down," I ordered, raising my voice as much as I was able, but I didn't have time to see who complied; if I was going to stop this guy, I had to act now. 

Slowly, I lifted both arms from my sides and opened my mouth. An ear-piercing, window-rattling shriek tore out of my throat and gave life to the pulsing, pathogenic black mass I conjured from both hands. Gasping, I dashed it forward. He hit the ground hard, convulsing as every nerve in his body was held in chaotic limbo. As I'd guessed it might, this sight threw everyone on the street into a panic. Vendors, customers and passersby were definitely were aware of me now.

The mostly-screaming throng parted and ran for cover in every which way, trying to get as far away from me as the grossly overcrowded streets allowed. I hit my knees and commenced to give my guy a very quick yet thorough pat down; not before I had withdrawn the psychic seizure, though, because in addition to the symptoms not being nice to look at, I felt that I would need that energy later.

"Sorry about that, pal," I murmured as grasped his head in both hands and inhaled the force I had put into his body. With that gone, he fell into unconsciousness, giving me the chance to rifle through his pockets. As I searched, I began to wonder what the heck this thing looked like that Brock had taken; Steve hadn't told us what to look for when we caught up with these guys. But whatever it resembled, I was pretty sure it wasn't pocket lint, because that was all that I came up with. _Great,_ I thought.

"Sam," I reached up and touched my earpiece, "I got nothing. You?" I didn't have to wait long. _"Romanoff just went for the other two,"_ he told me. _"My guy's empty."_

Until Natasha reported that she had the payload, we had to assume that Brock still had it. Which meant that I had just wasted precious seconds nabbing...whoever the heck this was. Scoffing through my teeth, I briefly closed my eyes before changing my frequency. 

"Steven," I began, but I was cut off by a jarring burst of static that nearly made me rip the comm from my ear. But I knew what it meant. Something had just happened. Something bad. "Steve, what was that?"" I tried again, but I never got the rest out.

Because I was hearing a voice I never thought I'd hear again. _"There you are, you son of a—"_ the last word was a very forgettable one.

Leaving the alley behind, I took off in the direction I had come from as if every psychic seizure I'd ever inflicted on mankind was tearing at my heels. Because if what I thought was happening was, in fact, happening, then this little escapade of ours was about to get very personal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. So short. But I am no longer blocked, and the next one will be much longer! Hope to get it up very soon :D

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know. Everybody hates leaving comments. But y'see, the thing is, I kinda need to know whether you hated the story or not. So fire when ready!


End file.
